Eon has urged National Grid not to offer long-term contracts for balancing services. The energy firm believes anything more than three-year terms risks locking in higher than necessary costs for consumers. Speaking at National Grid’s Power Responsive conference, Sara Vaughan, strategy & corporate affairs director at Eon, said the supplier currently has around 160MW of flexibility Read more…

National Grid added 500MW of new sources of non-traditional flexibility in 2016, according to Cathy McClay, head of commercial, Electricity, at the system operator. Much of that increase came from demand turn up (DTU) and enhanced frequency response (EFR), the schemes national grid launched to balance the system in summer and to create a route Read more…

Demand-side response (DSR) aggregator Enernoc is to be acquired by Italian utility Enel in a deal that values the company at around $300m (£236m). The utility’s North American subsidiary Enel Green Power North America will buy the firm at $7.67 per share in an all-cash transaction. “After a comprehensive review of strategic options, during which we evaluated a Read more…

There are quick bucks to be made from battery storage. But in three or four years, many assets will be in the bin, reckons redT chief Scott McGregor. He claims sustainable energy storage that can handle multiple functions for decades without degrading is now viable. Brendan Coyne reports Predictions for battery storage penetration vary wildly. Read more…

Foresight Group has acquired the 35MW Port of Tyne battery storage project from RES. It is one of the largest projects to win a four-year enhanced frequency response (EFR) contract from National Grid. The Port of Tyne battery also has a 12 year capacity market contract. The infrastructure and private equity management firm has some £2.6bn Read more…

ScottishPower has launched a major demand-side response (DSR) push. The company believes its pan-European footprint and balancing market expertise will set it apart in a crowded marketplace. William Black heads up ScottishPower’s industrial and commercial energy services unit. He says the firm’s intention is to build a much more integrated business than traditional demand-side response Read more…

National Grid needs more firms to help balance the power system. With some 35GW of renewables on the system, more than a third of it solar PV, summer may become as much of a challenge as winter. That equates to a year-round revenue opportunity from National Grid alone. Yet relatively few firms provide balancing services via their Read more…

National Grid has outlined plans for a major overhaul of balancing services over five years. The System Operator will start with frequency response, pledging to have a new product in market by next March. National Grid said it needs to procure faster frequency response closer to real time and wants views on its proposals. Within Read more…

With modern technological advances, more and more sensitive information is being stored offsite and online. It is essential, therefore, to ensure software and data is protected, not only from security breaches but also from electricity supply issues that cause critical systems to fail. Unfortunately, these supply issues have become an increasingly common issue with the Read more…

Independent generator Green Frog today commenced site works for its latest gas-fired power plant. The 40MW project in Swansea is the latest in a string of flexible plants the firm is building to provide grid balancing services. Green Frog has some 229MW in capacity market contracts and plans to amass a 1GW portfolio of gas and Read more…

Battery storage firm Powervault looks set to smash its target in its latest fund raising drive. The company seeks to raise £750,000 through crowdfunding. Three days into the 30-day round, it had topped £500,000. Last year, Powervault raised £1.4m via the Crowdcube platform, roughly double its target. Having announced trials with UK Power Networks and Marks & Read more…

Dong Energy is to install a 2MW battery at the 90MW Burbo Bank offshore wind farm by the year end. The firm will use it to generate revenue from grid balancing services. National Grid pays companies to help maintain transmission system frequency at 50Hz. If it drops off (due to power station outages, for instance) Read more…

Three quarters of companies considering battery storage projects predict payback periods of between three and seven years, according to early findings of a survey by The Energyst. However, when it comes to securing funds, predictability of revenue is a concern for almost two thirds (62%) of those surveyed, while stability of policy worries almost half Read more…

Green energy firm Ecotricity is to build a 2.5MW battery storage facility, laying the foundations to install batteries alongside its own wind and solar farms as well as business customer sites. The firm, which supplies some 5,500 business customers across 13,000 sites, said it had not yet selected a battery supplier and company boss Dale Read more…

Many organisations have to manage critical power supplies with technology that can provide full UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) functionality, due to the increasing number of brownouts and blackouts the electricity network is experiencing. Alongside resilience, rising energy prices are also a cause for concern for many businesses. Meanwhile, peak network charges for both the transmission Read more…

Italian utility Enel has acquired the 25MW Tynemouth stand-alone battery storage project from Element Power after buying up shares in subsidiary Tynemouth Energy Storage Limited. The firm says its total investment, including construction, will be around €20m (£17m). The deal means Enel has bought itself a four year contract to supply superfast grid balancing services to Read more…

Network operator Western Power Distribution says interest in connecting storage assets, chiefly batteries, has reached “unprecedented levels”. It has agreed connections for more than 1GW of storage, with connection offers also made for a further gigawatt. The company now seeks views from firms mulling energy storage investments so it can plan how to accommodate them on its networks Read more…

Gas and electricity companies working on smart grid projects must publicly share the data that emerges from them, Ofgem has decided. The regulator has made a number of rule changes to the Network Innovation Competition, under which it allocates funding to network companies to try new technologies and methodologies. The aim is to try and find Read more…

Are you involved in demand-side response provision; are you considering how to monetise flexible energy consumption, or whether to invest in battery storage? The Energyst needs your views, positive and negative, for its 2017 Demand-Side Response report. Please take this short survey and help us compile a snapshot of DSR and battery storage from an Read more…